Author: Ryann

Conventioneers takes place during a convention, specifically a convention for people who have either read a Brandon Sanderson book, or people who are loved by someone who’s read a Brandon Sanderson book. The best thing I can describe the convention as, in terms befitting those discussed in this class, is a meeting hub for an imagined community…

The best place to start is to talk about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me. A book meant as a letter from father to son. A discussion of things like code switching to fit into roles in the professional arena and the streets, “the Dream” white folks benefit from, the negligible value of…

I have been studying Dziga Vertov with veracity that cannot be contained to how little time I have to learn more and report back. This has led to me watching Man with a Movie Camera more times than I can count. Even then it still feels like it’s not enough. One of the things I…

Hearing the voices of people from different backgrounds and upbringings in a documentary is vital so that the viewer sees glimpses of the world from a perspective outside their own. Performative and participatory documentary are two sides of the same representative coin if people want to see the world from varying—yet personal—perspectives.  Performative mode finds…

This short documentary is a piece of a conversation between me and my father. The B roll comes from my personal camera roll. I didn’t initially intend to use it until I was sitting there editing the footage of my father telling me a story.   My family is very prone to telling stories. It’s…

Reflexive and participatory mode documentary are both auteurially involved ways to make a documentary. Every documentary needs an auteur, but these are the few that actually oblige the maker to look back at themselves in some way. The way in which they look back at themselves varies enough to divide their mode.In order to make…

Documentarians statement: This short documentary is composed of a personal collection of short videos I have accrued over the better part of three years. When I am out in the world, one of the things I find most interesting to watch out for is the vanity license plate. I cannot count the number of times…

The Act of Killing (2012), directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and Night and Fog (1956), directed by Alain Resnais, are foundationally different in the ways that they have to approach genocide. There’s an inherent difference that stems from the places and times they are portraying. The Act of Killing is about a group that was still in power…

Man with a Movie Camera (1929) is a poetic documentation of the rhythm within everyday life and the rhythm of observation. At its core, the theme of the film is that everything in life is a constant rotation repetition, and interplay. This leaks out in the juxtaposition between machine and life events of people in…